Applicant's invention relates to a unique power driven vacuum sweeper for thoroughly and rapidly removing padding and glued particles which remain glued to a floor surface prior to the installation of a new carpet.
Prior devices that have been used have attempted to accomplish this feat by employing various types of power driven oscillating scraping tools that are of a chisel shaped construction. Oscillating chisel shaped scraping tools of this type have several shortcomings. First of all, these devices have a tendency to remove not only the padding and glued particles but also a part of the upper wood, concrete or tile surface of the floor to which these glued particles are attached. A second disadvantage is that this way of cleaning a floor before laying down a new carpet is an extremely slow, time-consuming process. Third, the operation of this device is a very tedious one because the operator must periodically examine areas of the floor that have been scraped to see that all of the padded and glued particles have been removed before proceeding with the cleaning of the other areas. Finally, the use of such a scraping device for cleaning a floor requires an additional laborer besides the operator of the scraper to clean up the scrap which remains on the floor after such a scraping operation. The power driven vacuum sweeper covered by this invention eliminates all of these problems and enables a single operator to remove padding and glued particles that are stuck to a floor without any damage to the floor and with only one rapid sweep of the sweeper.